Philippine President Benigno Aquino III. (AP Photo/Malacanang Photo Bureau, Robert Vinas)
Victims still not getting relief assistance from the government more than week after Supertyphoon “Yolanda” devastated central Philippines shouldn’t look far for someone to blame.
President Aquino on Sunday returned to Ground Zero, promising prompt relief and rehabilitation, but also taking a swipe at local officials for allegedly failing to properly prepare for the incoming disaster.
“I won’t talk anymore because as President, I’m prohibited from getting angry,” he said sardonically in Filipino during a visit to Guiuan, Eastern Samar.
“I am upset but I will just keep it in my sour gut,” he said.
Aquino did not name names, though he had indicated earlier that Tacloban City, which bore the brunt of Yolanda, was not well-prepared.
The city mayor there is Alfred Romualdez, whose clan is a bitter political rival of the Aquinos. Romualdez was himself a victim after a huge storm surge battered the resort he was supposedly inspecting.
“I’m 53 and I can’t remember encountering a Storm Signal No. 4 before,” Aquino told Guiuan officials, whom he profusely praised for their disaster preparedness that led to fewer casualties.
“When you’re told that you will be hit [by the typhoon], what else will you do? You’ll act,” he said, still sounding sarcastic.
“But… I’ll just keep it to myself.”
With the government now having to feed an estimated 1.4 million typhoon victims daily, the President said help would arrive more quickly to areas with more efficient local officials.
“Whoever is prepared, he will receive [help] first,” he said, claiming the national government still lacked enough “data” on the relief and rehabilitation needs in other areas.
“We need not talk, only act,” he said.
The President insisted local government units were supposed to be the “first responders” in a calamity.
“The national government will come but you expect the local government to take care of everything. Then if more is needed, we will fill in,” he said.
“But if they haven’t started anything, we will do it. But we are still on our way,” he added.
“Where will you send the troops? Where will you send the medicines? You will need all these information.”
With at least 28 countries now extending help to the Philippines, the President assured typhoon survivors that the government “has the capability” to ensure their recovery.
Aquino is staying indefinitely in Tacloban to find ways to speed up the delivery of relief in Eastern Visayas.
Enormous challenge
He told reporters in a brief interview the challenge was “enormous.”
“At least the main roads have been cleared. We have to generate more efficiency in terms of the loading and unloading from ports in Luzon to unloading here, and also to distribution points,” he said, adding he expected power to be restored at the earliest in two months.
Asked if he was satisfied with what he had seen so far, he said: “I’m never satisfied. I always try to look for efficiencies, and better efficiencies. I keep telling everybody—from the people who are packing—each food pack is survival for a family of five every two days. And of course, once you have packed it, the idea of moving all of it and being as efficient as possible.”
“We’ll stay here until we see that we’re no longer adding [to the efforts of relief officials],” said the President, stressing the need to speed up the pace of relief operations, so that authorities could begin to concentrate on rebuilding devastated areas.
Aquino said he would meet with Romualdez in the evening to synchronize the efforts of both the national government and local government in hastening relief and recovery efforts. Romualdez was absent when the President toured Tacloban.
The mayor had a falling out with Interior Secretary Mar Roxas, cochair of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council. In the last May polls, Romualdez ran under the United Nationalist Alliance of Vice President Jejomar Binay.
Aquino arrived Sunday afternoon in Tacloban after a brief visit to Guiuan, where Yolanda first made landfall on Nov. 8 before it rampaged across the Visayas. In his first visit to Guiuan, the President inspected the town plaza, public market and central public school.
More trucks needed
The President went to Tacloban three days after the typhoon struck.
This time, he brought with him Speaker Feliciano Belmonte and some of key members of his Cabinet: Roxas, Public Works Secretary Rogelio Singson, Social Welfare Secretary Dinky Soliman, Energy Secretary Jericho Petilla and Metropolitan Manila Development Authority Chairman Francis Tolentino.
The President first motored to the seaport of Tacloban to inspect the unloading of relief from a cargo ship.
When he saw that process was taking much time, he looked for the port administrator himself and asked whether the government could borrow or rent several delivery trucks that were parked nearby.
When the port administrator could not give any answer, he asked for the caretaker of the trucks. The Inquirer overheard the caretaker telling the President that the trucks had been damaged by the typhoon.
“We have a mechanic to fix that,” Aquino said, and asked his aide to leave his contact numbers with the caretaker.
The President then went to Eastern Visayas Regional Medical Center and the warehouse of the National Food Authority, which has been turned into a repacking center for relief items.
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